Learning Capria FFH SG

[Hart]

Sorry for not replying sooner, I had somehow unsubbed from the thread.

My notes on enemy techs:

The AIs start with Crafting and Ancient Chants; the Ljos and the Illians also start with Exploration.

Amelanchier has built Gilden, and I think I also can see Deruptus in their capital. That means he has Archery, and either Hunting or Mining. I think I see six score increases that are due to tech, one of which is probably from a hut or dungeon. Given the slump between their first and second researched techs, I would think they went for an early Hunting, but I haven't seen them use any hunters, only scouts, so I guess it's Mining. Amelanchier also has Calendar, and quite probably also Knowledge of the Ether (based on mouseover of their reagents).

He has: Agriculture, Exploration, Crafting, Chants, Calendar, Mysticism, Knowledge of the Ether, Archery and either Mining or Hunting.

Auric has Cartography, and I think I can see two increases that fits with a new tech in their graph. From their Score graph I can only note two other techs, which is confirmed by looking at their GNP graph - it has hardly been improved at all once you remove the settled Great Bard.

He has: Exploration, Crafting, Chants, Cartography, and two more techs. Fishing and Hunting are not among them.

Jonas had two early techs, at least one is from a hut. I think I see five tech score increases, but their graph makes it hard to read. There is probably least one more. They have also built Rantine, so they have Bronze Working.

He has: Crafting, Chants, Mining, and Bronze Working, and four or five more techs.

Os-Gabella has built pastures, so she has Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. Her silk shows "requires: plantation", so she has Calendar. She has revolted to God King, so has Mysticism. Neither of her animals has a road yet (ie requires route). I see three score increases consistent with tech, but there might very well be one or two more.

She has: Agriculture, Crafting, Chants, Calendar, Animal Husbandry, Mysticism, and maybe more. The harpy event has also stunted her considerably. I think she might lack Exploration!

Did you get all that from the demographics and civ score? I'm familiar with tracking the "soldiers" stat to glean info about what civs are building, or what techs they might have gained but I've never been able to look at score and just guess what techs will have actually been researched.

Planning ahead:

The settler is meant for Magenta, obviously, but we have to decide exactly which tile to use.

So where? I'll put up a quick dotmap shortly.

Or, I could just agree with the position of 2W of the plains mana tile...

Keep a sizable reserve on the road halfway between Vallus and Torrolerial, where they quickly can reinforce any city in the empire. Trinity will also probably need a strong garrison, to dissuade attack and cover the workers.

Okay. Do we have any thoughts on production for Vallus? Just continue the Elder Council?

Once we get the great sage, we should switch civics, probably to Nationhood and Apprenticeship, and bulk up our forces. Torrolerial can 1-turn warriors if it's configured for 18 base production. I'd like to increase our with several more warriors and maybe a few scouts. The scouts are not to be sent out to explore! Keep them with the warrior or close to our borders, where they can check for incoming forces and pick off badly wounded enemies.

If we have copper easily accessible within our borders (or in first-ring for Magenta), I think we should go for Bronze Working next. Otherwise get either Hunting or HBR, so we can get some str 4 units in the field.

Solid plans.

Given the lack of roads in Os-Gabella's land, we might have an opportunity to attack her with bronze warriors. If we do that, I think we should go Mining-Bronze-HBR, so we can get Mobility I promotions and a few horsemen for scouting, pillaging, and picking off any Pyre Zombies she might have built. We should try to get Amelanchier to join in on our side.

That's a narrow window of opportunity. Could work, but the timing will need to be spot-on.

The alternative is "pink dot", claiming the land in the northwest and boxing in Auric. I like that better than white dot or (shudder) green dot. If we do that, we should look at Code of Laws to get the winter palace online.

It's nice land, but it's a significant distance... I think we stand to gain the same benefits, with a closer city and thus the benefit of less maintenance.

Be careful with choppings in Torrolerial - without the many forests the city is health constrained. Long-term, I think the city will need all the health buildings it can get. Maybe our choppings should go towards a granary, smokehouse, or herbalist? (Probably a granary, since we have a rice we can reach to our south.)

Agreed on the granary.

I was planning on playing this turn tonight, but I'm actually falling asleep at the computer, so I'll just leave that for tomorrow.

[kjn]

Sorry for not replying sooner, I had somehow unsubbed from the thread.

No problem. This SG has been moving extremely quickly, anyway. We can take it a little easy.

Did you get all that from the demographics and civ score? I'm familiar with tracking the "soldiers" stat to glean info about what civs are building, or what techs they might have gained but I've never been able to look at score and just guess what techs will have actually been researched.

I used the score, and the map and the diplo screens.

If you mouseover a resource, you get a note about its status: a tech needed, an improvement built, or a route to connect the resource. The Sheaim had "requires: route" on both the horse and the sheep, and "requires: plantation" on their silk. You can do the same for the Illians.

Then I simply looked for the tech-sized score increases. It was made simpler by having a box that corresponded to our tech score increases, that I could "fit" to their graphs. If we had kept track of the score numbers from turn 1 onwards, it'd probably have been even easier. I probably also should get the score increase from different eras of tech.

As for city placement, I think we had discussed this earlier, and it's not like the situation has changed since our previous discussion. I'm not sure, but Brian might want the on the hill (1S of Magenta), but I'm afraid that city will be production starved.

Okay. Do we have any thoughts on production for Vallus? Just continue the Elder Council?

Yes. I see Vallus as a pure commerce/science city. We keep the farm and pasture (for food), the cotton (for happiness), and get mines on the two hills to the south (1N and 1NW of the mana node, shared with Magenta). Cottage the rest. After the EC we might start slowbuilding Deruptus there, it's not like we have another place to put it and it will do most good in Vallus. But that's a long-term goal.

That's a narrow window of opportunity. Could work, but the timing will need to be spot-on.

Yes, and we will have to check the power graph like hawks, and maybe do some C&D on their status. I can't check the base values for techs and so on right now, but:

2 pop = 1K power
Scout = 2K power
Warrior = 3K power

Right now our power is a little less than 4/3 of Os-Gabella's, and that is at the minimum level of defending our empire.

It's nice land, but it's a significant distance... I think we stand to gain the same benefits, with a closer city and thus the benefit of less maintenance.

Yes. But it's either go that direction or go through Os-Gabella. The only city that will add something worthwhile to the empire otherwise are White and Golden. White's main value will be as a seaport to the northeast, and I doubt it will contribute much economically. Golden will contribute, but it is limited in how much it can grow and increase its contribution. And settling Golden will also require a major effort, like getting a navy.

In the northwest there is crab, fur, incense (our best happiness resource!), and raw, ice, and death mana. And with food to support at least three cities. It will also open up more avenues of expansion. It is the job of Pink dot to box in Auric and make sure we can settle all those resources.

Agreed on the granary.

But there is no hurry with it - we will get the fish online within a relatively short time. But Torrolerial will need health buildings relatively soon if it is to continue to grow, or get locked to the pure food tiles. -1 in health isn't that bad, but once you start to get -2 or more you have to start looking for ways to improve the situation (via buildings or more resources).

We should probably pick up FoL relatively soon too. PoLs are decent support units, and Temple of Leaves are combined health and happiness buildings.

I was planning on playing this turn tonight, but I'm actually falling asleep at the computer, so I'll just leave that for tomorrow.

No hurry, especially since Brian is away for now.

[Brian Shanahan]

It was Brian who sent out the scouting parties, and managed to get them almost all the way: I probably wouldn't have bothered. But denying Agg to the Illians is probably worth 75 hammers (two scouts and a warrior).

I was getting a bit bored and sent them off. The warrior with the scout was only an escort past the bear lair, but got corralled by some roving bears into staying with him. Them's smarter than the average bear I tell you.

As regard moving units on the last turn (turn x0) I usually play the turn w9 myself, save before the end turn and pass on. It allows the next player to look around without anyone annoying him (e.g. Worker: "tell me what to do!" city: "tell me what to build!" Sid: "tell me what tech you want researched, but I like this one and this one (both useless)") or having to make an important choice for him/her neither.

[haphazard1]

Sid: "tell me what tech you want researched, but I like this one and this one (both useless)"

I turned those "recommendations" off as soon as I realized there was an option to turn them off. If they are generated by the same logic that the AIs use, then it is amazing the AIs do as well as they do.

[Brian Shanahan]

Two more things.

1) We shouldn't bee too slow on bulking our army with horsemen or HAs neither. Both have a sweet +40% bonus vs archers, making them near essential against the Ljos, and pretty good overall.

2) I think I said out til Wednesday, if I did I meant Thursday, last exam is Wednesday and you know what that means.

[kjn]

A war with Os-Gabella

I found the post with power ratings.

Assume that Os-Gabella has 30k in power, with nothing from techs or buildings. Say a total population of 10 (5K). That would give 25K in soldiers, ie 7-8 warriors. Assume they have one promotion each (C1 or D1 or maybe G1), max fortify, and that their cities are on hills.

That gives their warriors an effective strength of 3*(1+.2+.25+.25+.25) = 5.85 on defense - and that number doesn't include culture or fortifications.

C1 bronze warriors (assuming we will have bronze) or non-bronze axes will have 4.8 effective strength, ie we will need an invasion force of more than twice Os-Gabella's numbers even to take one city, and afterwards that force will be spent for quite a while. C1 bronze axes will get about 6.5, so there we can expect some survivors in the first wave.

So if we are to reliably take Os-Gabella I think we will need a force of 10+ axemen, probably with a few warriors for garrisons and to mop up survivors. Add some scouting units (scouts or horsemen, or even better hawks and hunters) and we're talking about an investment of say 900 hammers at minimum. And the bulk of those hammers will have to come from Torrolerial. What's worse, we can't really get started on that before Bronze Working.

We can probably hurry up the production by doing mass or selective upgrading of warriors (75 gold), but that would slow our teching to Bronze Working in the first place, due to the need to conserve our gold reserve. Upgrading low-level units is also a bad way to spend gold, I think.

[kjn]

1) We shouldn't bee too slow on bulking our army with horsemen or HAs neither. Both have a sweet +40% bonus vs archers, making them near essential against the Ljos, and pretty good overall.

Yep. Horsemen are quite decent units. If you can get Flanking 3 on them I imagine they're monsters when upgraded to HAs.

Horse Archers are fantastic. Good strength, awesome mobility, can be upgraded from warriors or scouts (ie you can get those melee- or recon-only promotions), uses an early-game resource, and it's an easy to get the tech. I imagine they will be our main heavy hitter mid- and end-game.

[Hart]

Okay here we go!

t92:
Delent Payne (Great Sage) has been born in Torrorleriol! Moved to Vallus to found the Academy next turn.

The Sage is switched off to produce more hammers - we'll make it back from the Academy in no time, and that settler will be out that much quicker. The 3 beakers makes only 1 turn of difference (and later on I find that it makes NO difference).

t93:
Mining is completed! Research is set Way of the Earthmother, as general discussion had indicated we were probably leaning toward a religion. It actually took me a while to find the point where we made this decision...

And we are in luck. Trinity has copper on the southern grassland tile! Instead of chopping and mining the GL forest hill, I move Trinity's worker team to the copper to begin mining next turn. I also figure that it is better to keep growing Trinity's cottage, because it matches the growth of Trinity exactly.

Workers begin chopping near Torrorlerial.

The Academy is constructed in Vallus, giving us an immediate boost of 4 beakers, which will be much higher once the cottages near Vallus start growing (next turn!). Things are shaping up!

t95:
The first two forest chops near Torrolerial are completed, producing 26 hammers total... combining with our 14 base production, for a whopping 60 hammers after the production bonus! A Granary is switched in to take advantage of this. The granary would be completed in 4 turns. We can also use this bonus to complete the settler in ONE (1) turn, but I figure sticking to the granary plan as discussed is a better option.

t96:
Vallus' border expands... catching a bear in its grip!

Torrolerial's two workers begin farming the western grassland tile.

t97:
The Copper mine near Trinity is completed, giving us 2/4/0 yield on that tile. Trinity is micro'd back to the cottage, to push it up to a hamlet. This matches Trinity's growth curve perfectly, so in 3 turns it'll be size 2, working a hamlet and the copper mine, and still be growing!

However, this has thrown off the micro plans slightly. One of Trinity's workers hasn't acted this turn, so I set him to building a road. This unsync's him from his buddy, but we need it anyway.

t98:
I set the other worker in Trinity to building a trade road, 1E of the copper. In hindsight, not the best move - should have moved to help plant+chop the silk.

Torrorlerial's farm is completed... leaving one worker free to act this turn. I move him onto a grassland hill forest to begin chopping next turn.

t99:
A busy turn. The Settler finishes in Torrolerial and Trinity grows to size 2. Trinity's worker (who roaded the copper tile last turn) moves to help chop and plant the Silk, which will now happen next turn. Trinity's monument will be completed in 7 turns, without including the imminent chop yield from the silk tile.

The Settler moves into position, landing on the roaded tile outside our borders. 2 Warriors move to escort him and later become the garrison for Magenta.

t100:
Curses! The Settler and warriors have caused our captive bear to move out of the culture trap! Not the end of the world as we'll build a city this turn and he'll be trapped again, but now he's in the inner ring.

Tentatio-onis is founded in the magenta site we specified earlier, and begins building an Elder Council.

A couple of chops finish, giving us 4 turns for Trinity's monument, and 1 turn on Torrolariel's Granary. Vallus' Elder Council is due in 4 turns also.

In Summary
Research rate is currently +51/turn, which is an excellent improvement on 30-40 turns ago. Way of the Earthmother is due in 6 turns. For this reason, Tentatio-onis should not build a monument. Chances are high that this city, being our last founded, will get the holy city of RoK (provided no one else gets it first), and thus won't need a bonus building to provide culture.

Speaking of T-O (these city names are a mouthful, why don't you guys implement the naming scheme?), one thing that city should do immediately is claim the unused farm near Vallus for early growth.

While I'm happy in my choices for worker actions, perhaps they could have been better? You decide.

Demographics and graph screenshots below.

AW YEAH!







HOLY SHIT.

Edit: Forgot the save.

[kjn]

Shit!

Perhaps I wasn't too clear about this (our planning is spread out in small bits all over the place), but we need military more than we need the health in Torrolerial! Our ten warriors are over-tasked garrisoning cities and protecting workers. Having -1 health in Torrolerial is no big deal. Losing Vallus or Trinity due to lack of available forces would be a very big deal. Personally, I'd have put the first chops into the settler, to get T-O out earlier, and churn out a few warriors until the next chops were due (those could have gone to a granary).

Did you switch civics, from Pacifism to Nationhood+Apprenticeship?

Researching WotE isn't a real priority right now, since it has already been founded (if it hadn't, then I'd agree it'd be important to get there first). It's a nice to have thing, that fits our chosen style of play, but we're not in a particular hurry either.

Even if RoK had been available, T-O would need a monument. RoK only gives culture to the holy city, it mainly generates gold. And the founding of religions favour larger cities. So I think the most likely city of ours to become holy is Vallus right now. Given our easy access to copper, Bronze Working would probably have been my preferred choice of research.

The EC in T-O would give us +2 beakers. The monument will give us fish (+1 health in all cities) and horses (2-3-1 tile for T-O, and access to horsemen).

But more than everything: MORE MILITARY!

Our power has been flat and stagnating while we focused on expanding our empire and kick our research into gear. Now we have done those things, so it's time to expand our military.

[Hart]

Losing Vallus or Trinity due to lack of available forces would be a very big deal. Personally, I'd have put the first chops into the settler, to get T-O out earlier, and churn out a few warriors until the next chops were due (those could have gone to a granary).

That's fair criticism, but where exactly is that threat going to come from?

1) I haven't seen a single lair the entire game, barring the Sepulchre.
2) The only barbarians I've seen are animal units - this is t100, they should be crawling all over the map by now.
3) Os-Gabella and Amelanchier are in significantly worse shape militarily than us. Edit: Okay, they're not that far behind. Amelanchier's been building scouts and archers, at a guess, judging by the steady appearance (and subsequent disappearance) of scouts trying to explore past the western mountains. Ossie has done practically nothing (but she's definitely building something...)
4) The other potential threat is from Sheelba, and her terrain is far away enough that she hasn't actually found ours yet.

If I didn't know better I would say this map was generated with No Lairs...

Did you switch civics, from Pacifism to Nationhood+Apprenticeship?

See, I knew there was something I had forgotten. Admittedly I hadn't built any military to take advantage of the XP bonus, but still, this sucks a bit.

Researching WotE isn't a real priority right now, since it has already been founded (if it hadn't, then I'd agree it'd be important to get there first). It's a nice to have thing, that fits our chosen style of play, but we're not in a particular hurry either.

Now, see, the problem with this forum software is that I only get an email to check this thread ONCE, and then nothing until I check it again. Why couldn't we have mentioned this in big, bold writing?

Anyway, we'll still get the religion (FFH religious techs *always* give a disciple unit of the given religion - we just missed the holy city). I just didn't bank on RoK only giving gold, not culture per city. That really bites! It sucks even more because initially I had Bronze Working selected, but then thought "weren't we going for RoK?" and switched. Rather annoyed.
[SIZE="1"]I never really use RoK myself - I prefer to rush Trade, grab either CoS or Empy, or if I'm playing elves, then I would beeline FoL.[/SIZE]

Could we turn this to our advantage, and try to convert Amelanchier to the same religion, and thus giving us the diplomacy boost we'd need to smash Os-Gabella? Or would it just be better to switch straight to BW first and get the religion later? Disciples themselves can be very useful for early border expansion, too.

But more than everything: MORE MILITARY!

Our power has been flat and stagnating while we focused on expanding our empire and kick our research into gear. Now we have done those things, so it's time to expand our military.

Yeah. RoK actually gets us Sons of Kilmorph, which are Str4, can use all weapon upgrades, and only require the religion in a given city. That was my thinking, rather than needing to build Training Yards everywhere, we'd just spread RoK everywhere.